Local History: The Lieutenant Governor John Wentworth House and Five Women Named Sarah

While its beginnings have been the subject of many historical architects' debates, we know the South End mansion once owned by Lieutenant Governor John Wentworth (1671-1730) and his wife Sarah Hunking Wentworth (ca. 1673–1741) survived until taken down in 1926. This process was well documented because the best parts of the finish treatments went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The most likely beginning is that it was built by John Wentworth himself between 1695 and 1705. The elaborate interior paneling and stairway were probably added within a decade of its construction.

The occupants have been less well known. Join us as historian Sandra Rux explores the lives of those who lived in the house during the time of Wentworth family ownership from the perspective of five women named Sarah: Sarah Hunking Wentworth, wife of Lieutenant Governor John; Sarah Wentworth Macpheadris (1702-1778), daughter of Sarah and John and wife of Archibald Macpheadris; Sarah Hall Wentworth (1713-1790), wife of John Wentworth, a son of Lieutenant Governor John and Sarah Hunking; Sarah Wentworth Purcell, (1741-1789) daughter of Judge John and Sarah Hall; and Sarah Purcell Gardner (1770-1841), daughter of Sarah and Gregory Purcell and 3rd wife of William Gardner. Widows, children, men perishing at sea, and the American Revolution all play a part in this story.

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About the Presenter
Sandra Rux received a BA in History from the University of Connecticut and an MA in History from Trinity College, Hartford CT, and is a graduate of the Museum Studies program of the Munson Institute, Mystic Seaport Museum. Her business career was with AT&T in New York City. She came to Portsmouth in 2005 as the Synergy manager for the Portsmouth Historical Society, Warner House, and Wentworth-Gardner and Lear Houses before serving as manager and curator for the Portsmouth Historical Society until December 2014. Sandra was named Curator of the Warner House Association (2014-2019) and chairperson of the Portsmouth Athenaeum Exhibits Committee (2014-2021). A hand loom weaver herself, she has written about 19th century carpet weaving for the Dublin Seminar and in Corsets, Clocks and Locks, a book about the industrial development of New Haven, CT. Recent exhibits include Three Centuries of Dining at the Warner House and several exhibits at the Portsmouth Athenaeum. Sandra and her husband Alan Haesche have recently moved back to CT. Current research is focused on makers of weaving reeds in the northeast US (1750-1830), Lieutenant Gov. John Wentworth and his 14 children and on furnishing textiles as an outgrowth of reviewing probate inventories accumulated while preparing for various exhibits and object research on the collections of the Portsmouth Historical Society and the Warner House.